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HARTFORD -- The nationwide realignment of big-time athletic conferences may have started with Texas A&M's defection from the Big 12 at the end of August.

But it was the anticipation that the University of Pittsburgh and Syracuse University, two mainstays of the Big East Conference, were leaving for the Atlantic Coast Conference in mid-September that put UConn President Susan Herbst into a frantic damage-control operation within the first few weeks of taking her new job.

In a flurry of emails starting Sept. 17, the day after the Huskies' football team lost 24-20 to Iowa State at Rentschler Field, Herbst made it clear to the UConn athletic department that she was to serve as the public face of the university.

"I gather that Pitt and syr are definitely jumping, may be announced in 24 hours," she wrote that afternoon, telling university athletics officials to "hold tight" and avoid making statements under growing pressure from reporters looking to see if UConn would jump, too.

By 6:50 a.m. the next day, after the confirmation from Syracuse and Pitt that indeed they were migrating in time for the 2012 football season, interim UConn Athletic Director Paul Pendergast wrote Herbst that "the earth seems to be moving ten times faster than normal."

The 33-year-old Big East, whose founder, David Gavitt, died that Friday night at 73, was on the verge of collapse. Syracuse was a founding member from 1979. Pitt joined in 1982.

Herbst and Big East Commissioner John Marinatto demanded secrecy and unity in the face of the challenges, the emails show.

Pendergast and Herbst were torn between staying in the Big East or seeking their own deal elsewhere. The university was also positioning itself as a major athletics attraction in the New York-Boston corridor and essentially solidifying its status as one of the original members of the Big East.

UConn refused to release another 32 pages of emails, citing state law that allows the university to retain "trade secrets" that might contain details of economic value.

The emails indicate that Herbst saw herself and other university presidents -- and not the athletic departments -- as the key players in the conference alignment drama.

"We'll tell you what we know as we get more people we can trust, who have actual information of value," Herbst wrote on the afternoon of Sept. 17 to Pendergast and other officials. "If anyone calls, don't take the call or deflect to me. It's sensitive right now, and lots of crazy talk, so let's not cross wires."

A day later, Herbst warned Pendergast, "we are not desperate at all, and some patience is involved" as she noted that she was in contact with "many" university presidents and conference commissioners. "In general, at this point at least, ADs (athletic directors) are not running the discussion around the country and a lot is happening."

Eventually officials' wait-and-see attitude, combined with orders from Herbst and Pendergast to keep a solid wall against scrutiny from the news media, yielded a sense that UConn would stay in the Big East, for the time being.

On Oct. 18, a set of talking points, under the heading "UConn is New York City's Team," was prepared by the university, focusing on the demographics of its basketball and football teams and their growing popularity in the New York TV market via the SportsNet New York (SNY) channel.

As word of the planned departures of Pittsburgh and Syracuse seeped out, Big East Commissioner Marinatto beseeched leaders of the remaining schools to stick together, thanking them for "your ongoing loyalty and support," while asking university presidents to forward media inquiries to his office.

"Again, I plan to continue to respond very positively to media inquiries about the Big East Conference by reiterating how confident I am about our future, which is in many ways tied to the optimistic view we have about our media rights value -- including the fact we now represent thirty percent of TV households in America with nine of the top 35 media markets in our footprint," he wrote to the university presidents and athletics officials on Thursday, Sept. 8."

A request for comment to Big East Commissioner Marinatto was not returned Wednesday.

Enright, the UConn athletics spokesman, said in response to the release of the emails that university officials in September were "concerned" about the future of athletics at UConn, which joined as Big East founders in 1979.

"Obviously it was a busy time," Enright said in a Wednesday phone interview. "There was tons of media speculation, right and wrong. There were a lot of moving pieces at the same time. We're a committed member of the league and league is going through expansion and at the same time we always do what's in the best interests of the university."

By the second week of December -- as Herbst was finishing her first six months as UConn president -- Marinatto announced that Boise State, San Diego State, Central Florida, Houston and Southern Methodist University would join the Big East in 2013.